Chapter 18 – Leo
EIGHTEEN
LEO
On Sunday, I head to the hardware store early, eager to miss the crowds, and head straight for the paint department, looking for paint for the guest room. I have no clue what color I’m looking for, but without thinking, I find myself navigating towards a specific section.
Blue.
Welcoming and calming.
Like the light blue shirt she wore Friday night. As soon as that thought enters my mind, I fight it, shaking my head, and reach for a yellow swatch. I don’t like that one, so I grab a green one, then a cream color, determined not to choose blue. But none of them is right.
Without meaning to, my fingers graze over the blue paint chips again.
Fine. Blue it is.
It doesn’t mean anything; it doesn’t mean I’m doing what she said. It just means that blue is a good option, which it is. I would wager that it’s probably the most popular color choice for a guest room. Maybe even just a room in general. Right?
Right.
Content with my choice and assuring myself that it has absolutely nothing to do with Willa Stone, I begin looking through the colors.
Powder blue.
Hydrangea blue.
Sky blue.
Ocean spray blue
Who the fuck knew there were so many shades of blue? Why isn’t there just a guest room light blue? How on earth is someone supposed to pick out of the seemingly thousands of colors of blue, all of them almost identical?
Willa would know, a voice in my head says without my permission. I frown at the wall of paint chips, pretending I have no idea where that came from.
But I know. I know where it came from. It’s the same place that almost handed her the sander when she asked to help with the cabinets, and I saw her sad face when I told her no.
In my defense, I stand by that—the woman’s barely ever held a hammer, I’m sure, and was hungover for what might have been the first time in her life.
She shouldn’t have been handling power tools.
But that part of me that always wants to give Willa exactly what she wants, who makes the most bizarre, specific requests for her career happen just to see that grateful grin light up a room, wanted to wipe that look off her face forever.
Stupid.
It’s so fucking stupid.
Idiotic, stupid, absolutely foolish, and irresponsible.
Still, I find myself putting the paintbrushes I grabbed to paint the edges of the room back on the shelf.
Then I’m taking my cart to the front of the store and leaving at the cart return.
I find myself walking to my car and turning the key in the ignition. Driving back toward my house, but passing the turn for my driveway.
I shouldn’t do it.
I should turn back to the store and get any old blue or maybe say fuck it and go for a green, but since moving here, the steely restraint I’ve built against Willa has melted away.
I know in the past, I’ve done the right thing, keeping a barrier between us, maintaining the professionalism I need. She’s my client, and nothing else. I’ve never had any issue with keeping that divide between us until recently.
In the last week, I held her in my arms multiple times. In the last week, I’ve watched her stand her ground, argue with me, bring back that backbone that I thought was long gone and forgotten.
In the last week, I’ve contemplated crossing that very clear line in the sand more times than I should admit.
But I can’t cross that line, not even if she’s looked like she wanted me to cross it just as badly as I wanted to.
But what I can give her is a new experience.
She can’t be mine, but we can be friends, right?
That’s what I convince myself as I drive up a windy road, not on my property but on the Three Kings property past Jesse’s place, and stop at a small cabin with a familiar truck out front.
When I kill the engine, I take in a deep breath, dropping my head to the steering wheel, and try to convince myself to turn around.
To leave and go back to the store, ask an employee to pick a color, any color, and move on with my life.
But I see her disappointed face every time I close my eyes. And I don’t foresee that changing anytime soon.
So instead of being wise, I step out of my car and take the steps to her place before knocking on the front door. I don’t have much more time to second-guess myself, thankfully, because in no time at all, the door opens, a sweaty Willa standing before me.
She’s in a sport bra of some kind and a pair of tight shorts, both in a pale purple color that I’ve never seen her in before.
Her hair is piled up on top of her head, her face free of makeup, making the freckles across the bridge of her nose visible.
Her chest is heaving with breaths, and I have to fight everything in me not to look down and stare at the rise and fall like the sick fuck I am.
“Leo?” she asks, rightfully confused.
“Hey, Willa.” Then I stand there at her front door at ten in the morning, staring at her and not saying a word.
Like a fucking creep.
Words move through my mind, but none of them make sense, and none of them are something that ever should fall from my lips, so I just stand there, quietly.
Staring.
“What are you doing here?” she asks, hesitantly, the words throwing me out of my daze.
What am I doing here?
What am I doing here?
What am I doing here?
“I—” I start, then I remember, and before I can think better of it, words fall from my lips. “Do you want to help me pick out paint?”
“Paint?” The confusion on her face deepens, leaking into her voice now.
“For my guest room. And maybe a couple of others, so I don’t have to bug you next time.”
“You want me to help you pick out paint colors for your house?”
“You said you liked to watch those shows, and while I don’t need my place to look like it was from one of those shows or a magazine or anything, I would like it to be…
nice. And I went to the store to buy paint today, and did you know there are a billion colors of blue?
” Her lips tip at the edges, her arms cross over her chest, and once again, I fight everything in me to stay looking straight ahead.
Eyes up, Sinclaire. Be a gentleman. Be a goddamn human.
“I did,” she says.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t, so imagine my surprise when I tried to find one, but there’s at least a thousand just for light blue, and they all kind of looked the same to me, so I wasn’t sure what I should go with.
I don’t really want to repaint it if I don’t have to, and you said you saw those shows, so I thought maybe…
” My words trail off, and I look at her face.
That’s when I realize that she’s entertained by this. By me.
This was a terrible idea.
“This was stupid,” I say, shaking my head. “I’m an adult. I can pick out paint colors–”
“No, no!” she says as I step back, arms uncrossing and one reaching out to grab my forearm, bare beneath a T-shirt I threw on this morning.
Her touch is warm and soft, something new I desperately have to fight not to catalogue for later.
“Don’t go. I would love to help you.” My eyes move from where she’s touching me to her eyes, brown again, something that, for some reason, brings me a spark of joy.
“Really?”
“Yeah. I’m bored. Nat’s working, and Hallie and Jesse are packing to head to Seaside Point for the week. Adam and Wren are going away, and I’m kind of…” She shakes her head. “I have nothing to do.”
“Will you help me pick it out?” She nods.
“Under one condition,” she says, and I sigh. I should have known there would be a catch. “You have to let me help you paint.”
“So we just dump the paint in here and start going at it?” she asks, staring at the can, then the tray on the floor at her feet, and I can’t help but smile.
We spent an hour at the hardware store, picking up three gallons of paint and more supplies than I probably needed, but watching Willa in the store was so thoroughly entertaining that I couldn’t resist adding the things she pointed out.
“They used this for edging on one show!” she said, showing a foam edger that I know my dad would absolutely have said was a piece of overpriced bullshit that no one actually needs.
I added it to the cart.
“Did you see this?” she asked excitedly.
“It starts out pink, then turns white when it’s dry!
How smart is that?” I had enough spackle and had patched most of the holes already, but I instantly tried to think of where in the house she could try it out.
I added the biggest tub and a palette knife to the cart.
“For keeping your feet clean! It’s like you’re a surgeon!” she said, showing me the little booties that go over your shoes. I’d laughed and thrown them in, for some reason eager to see her in the ugly things.
It took three trips to bring all of the new gadgets and tools into the house and twenty minutes to settle in, and now we’re in the guest room I had already primed, ready to fulfill her apparent life-long dream of painting a room.
“Basically,” I say, grabbing a paint key and gently opening it before reaching for a stirring stick.
“Oh my god, can I do that?” she asks, wide eyes on the wooden stick in my hand.
“Sure.” I hand it off, feeling that familiar fire when her fingers graze mine as she grabs it. I watch with fascination as she looks over the stick before dipping it into the can. Too quickly, she stirs the paint, a wave cresting the edge and dripping down the side in a moment.
“Oh, shit!” she says, letting go of the stick, then staring wide-eyed at the drip. I shake my head, reach for a rag, and wipe the side clean.
“You’ve gotta go slower,” I instruct, taking her hand in mine and moving it to the stick, showing her how to hold it. “Like this.” Then I slowly stir the goo into the can. “Scrape the bottom and keep going until it’s totally mixed.”
“Oh. That makes sense,” she says, her voice a bit off as I let go and step away, needing the distance. We both watch the paint turn a uniform light blue before I tell her it’s good, pour a generous amount into the tray, and hand her a roller.
“Go to town,” I say.